Being Resilient Between the Region and the Higher Education System? Views on Regional Higher Education Institutions in Estonia and Finland

ABSTRACTThe chapter investigates the organizational resilience of the regional higher education institutions (RHEIs) located in the peripheries of Estonia and Finland, focusing on two case studies: Kuressaare College, Estonia and the University Consortium of Seinäjoki, Finland. The aim is to explore the sources and strategies of the organizational resilience of RHEIs, which must be resilient in two respects: they are exposed to changes in the higher education system (HES), and they are impacted by the processes in their region that is, in turn, a part of a larger economic and administrative system. We found that the resilience of RHEIs within regions and the HE system develops in a coevolutionary manner over the course of history; here, progressiveness and flexibility are the most important strategies for RHEIs.

An Insider’s Take on Data Curation: Context, Quality, and Efficiency

This commentary describes how context, quality, and efficiency guide data curation at the University of Michigan's Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). These three principals manifest from necessity. A primary purpose of this work is to facilitate secondary data analysis but in order to so, the context of data must be documented. Since a mistake in this work would render any results published from the data inaccurate, quality is paramount. However, optimizing data quality can be time consuming, so automative curation practices are necessary for efficiency. The implementation of these principles (context, quality, and efficiency) is demonstrated by a recent case study with a high-profile dataset. As the nature of data work changes, these principles will continue to guide the practice of curation and establish valuable skills for future curators to cultivate.

Why they shared: recovering early arguments for sharing social scientific data

ArgumentMost social scientists today think of data sharing as an ethical imperative essential to making social science more transparent, verifiable, and replicable. But what moved the architects of some of the U.S.’s first university-based social scientific research institutions, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research (ISR), and its spin-off, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), to share their data? Relying primarily on archived records, unpublished personal papers, and oral histories, I show that Angus Campbell, Warren Miller, Philip Converse, and others understood sharing data not as an ethical imperative intrinsic to social science but as a useful means to the diverse ends of financial stability, scholarly and institutional autonomy, and epistemological reproduction. I conclude that data sharing must be evaluated not only on the basis of the scientific ideals its supporters affirm, but also on the professional objectives it serves.

Preface to the special issues of the Thirteenth European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC 2019)

The 13th EWTEC Conference was held in the beautiful and ancient city of Naples and was organized by CONISMA (National Inter-University Consortium for Marine Sciences) from 1th to 6th Sept. 2019.

Finding, Accessing, and Using Secondary Data for Research on Gifted Education and Advanced Academics

Secondary data analysis can benefit researchers of advanced academics by providing large sample sizes and a variety of data on multiple topics. However, using secondary data comes with unique challenges. This article will outline how gifted education researchers can find, access, and use secondary data. Data are available on children from birth to adulthood and are typically accessed through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) or the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The majority of data sources have public-use files available, but some sensitive data may require special permissions. This article includes examples of advanced academic research that used popular databases along with software options for utilizing available data. We conclude with considerations researchers should take into account when considering using secondary data analysis, such as computer memory and technical skills.

A Comparative Study on Effectiveness of Using Horasan Mortar as a Pure Friction Sliding Interface Material

In this study, the possibility to use Horasan mortar as a sliding interface material for pure friction aseismic isolation system is investigated. Both experimental and numerical studies are conducted to examine the effectiveness of using this material in structural isolation systems of buildings with no overturning moment, as it has shown some attractive experiences in time based on the existing related literature. Responses of four storey lightweight building are numerically investigated by finite element modelling in MATLAB; whereas the University Consortium on Instructional Shake Table (UCIST) is used to study the responses of the same building during experimental works. Comparison of both studies is shown to be in a good agreement in terms of resulting structural response accelerations, velocity and displacements. Approximately 28 - 31 % reduction of base floor acceleration is achieved; and the maximum sliding velocity and displacement are found to lie between 0.33-0.45 m/sec and 0.0353-0.0559 m respectively; which fall within the recommended standards’ limits. As a result, these findings demonstrate the effectiveness of using Horasan mortar as friction interface material which has additionally gained experience in more than ten centuries.